The U.S. Supreme Court Majority Are Enemy Combatants!

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There clearly is a war in America and it has officially been declared by the United States Supreme Court with their decision to grant corporations unlimited spending for election campaigns.

“This ruling strikes at our democracy itself,” Mr. Obama said, adding: “I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest. The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington, or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections.”

The ruling, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205, overruled two precedents: Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a 1990 decision that upheld restrictions on corporate spending to support or oppose political candidates, and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, a 2003 decision that upheld the part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that restricted campaign spending by corporations and unions. (New York Times, 1-22-10, Adam Liptak)

Mr. Greg Palast, investigative journalist, wrote on his website, “Hidden money funding, whether foreign or domestic, is the new venom that the Court has injected into the system by its expansive decision in Citizens United.” “I'm losing sleep over the millions — or billions — of dollars that could flood into our elections from ARAMCO, the Saudi Oil corporation's U.S. unit; or from the maker of "New Order" fashions, the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Or, from Bin Laden Construction corporation. Or, Bin Laden Destruction Corporation.

Right now, corporations can give loads of loot through PACs. While this money stinks (Barack Obama took none of it), anyone can go through a PAC's federal disclosure filing and see the name of every individual who put money into it. And every contributor must be a citizen of the USA.

But under today's Supreme Court ruling that corporations can support candidates without limit, there is nothing that stops, say, a Delaware-incorporated handmaiden of the Burmese junta from picking a Congressman or two with a cache of loot masked by a corporate alias.”

Mr. Palast continued, “The danger of foreign loot loading into U.S. campaigns, not much noted in the media chat about the Citizens case, was the first concern raised by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who asked about opening the door to "mega-corporations" owned by foreign governments. … Congress might be able to prohibit foreign corporations from making donations…Tara Malloy, attorney with the Campaign Legal Center of Washington D.C. says corporations will now have more rights than people. Only United States citizens may donate or influence campaigns, but a foreign government can, veiled behind a corporate treasury, dump money into ballot battles.

Malloy also noted that under the law today, human-people, as opposed to corporate-people, may only give $2,300 to a presidential campaign. But hedge fund billionaires, for example, who typically operate through dozens of corporate vessels, may now give unlimited sums through each of these "unnatural" creatures.

And once the Taliban incorporates in Delaware, they could ante up for the best democracy money can buy.”

Mr. Palast describes how corporations poison the campaigns of politicians and deceptively influence the decisions of voters who vote NOT in their own best interests. “Congressional investigators found that in crucial swing races, Democrats had fallen victim to a flood of last-minute attack ads funded by a group called, "Coalition for Our Children's Future." The $25 million that paid for those ads came, not from concerned parents, but from a corporation called "Triad Inc."

Evidence suggests Triad Inc. was the front for the ultra-right-wing billionaire Koch Brothers and their private petroleum company, Koch Industries. Had the corporate connection been proven, the Kochs and their corporation could have faced indictment under federal election law. As of today, such money-poisoned politicking has become legit.” (Gregpalast.com, Manchurian Candidates:
 Supreme Court allows China and others
 unlimited spending in US,1-21-10 elections)

The Supreme Court majority members who appear to create new law cloth from their own looms, appear to be part of the neo-fascist ‘corpora-politico’ uprising in this country. We saw it with Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America, which brought in tanker loads of cash to buy neo-con politicians to fill the seats of Congress on behalf of the international corporate royalists. They were instrumental in crafting an agenda that brought President Clinton to the table with an 18 carat gold nibbed Schaeffer fountain pen embossed with the words “Bill Clinton” along with the White House seal, in hand to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act, and create the Commodity Futures Modernization Act-1999, opening the flood gates allowing the laissez-faire, faux-free market capitalists to begin feeding at the Treasury-Federal Reserve’s public cash trough, as they fabricated fake mortgage-backed securities and formulated fictitious and fraudulent derivative contracts. Along with that tall order, they shipped US jobs over to countries with minimal-to-no worker rules, regulations, or minimum wage scales.

Dr. Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic Policy Research, suggested in his 1-25-10 Huffington Post piece titled Leveling the Economic and Political Playing Field, “…to get the privilege of limited liability, corporations would have to give up their political rights in the same way that insurance companies often require people to give up their right to sue and instead submit to binding arbitration. Everyone still has the right to sue, but not in the cases where they have explicitly surrendered this right to the insurance company. Similarly, corporations still have the full right to take part in political activity, but not if they have surrendered this right in order to gain the privilege of limited liability. There is actually precedent for exactly this sort of restriction in the law. Tax-exempt organizations are severely restricted in their ability to support candidates, lobby legislatures, or in other ways take part in the political process. This is not viewed as a restriction on freedom of speech; it is simply a condition of getting tax-exempt status. These organizations are free to engage in as much political activity as they like, but not when they are benefiting from tax-exempt status. There is no reason that the government can't apply the same rules to the political conduct of corporations as it does to tax-exempt organizations. They can do whatever they like, but not when they benefit from the privilege of limited liability.”

Dr. Baker concludes his piece with the following truth, “nless we can do something to reverse the direction of politics in the United States, the burden that the wealthy and corporate America impose on the rest of society will grow ever larger. And we should be very clear: this has absolutely zero to do with free markets and free speech. This is entirely about writing the rules so that the rich can rip off the rest of us.”

And in addition, we have Timmy Geithner threatening Americans by inferring that if Ben Bernanke is not re-nominated by Congress, there will be trouble. "The markets would view this as very troubling thing for the economy as the whole.”

Timmy Geithner appears to be working to help the mega-investment banks avoid President Obama’s financial regulatory reform plan. President Obama is broaching the idea of limiting a bank’s ability, if they consider themselves a banking holding company, to have the government federally insure their deposits, if they trade in risk-based securities for their own accounts, and if they pedal in hedge or private equity funds.

But Geithner would work around such rules by offering banks that are skittish about such government regulation the opportunity to shed their holding company mystery cloak, which allowed them to tap into government TARP funds and feed at the Federal Reserve’s discount cash fund window feeding trough. But now that Obama wants to change the rules, they will remake themselves once again.  The Geithner Coup Intervention Plan would allow them to keep their trading and investment crap table operations flowing without financial interruption. Goldman Sachs would be the biggest financial casino operator to benefit from such a Geithner push-back plan.

This is the war against working Americans. We have Trojan horses, such as Timmie-daG-Geithner, inside the White House, being subverted by former Clintonian Treasury Secretary, Paul Volcker, advising President Obama that he needs to move on financial market regulatory reform unless he wants to continue with the Goldman Sachs-business-as-usual plan.

With the Supreme Court siding with the mega-investment banking giants, and the Goliath-like international corporate royalists to secure legislator loyalty and an executive who would likely be bought and paid for to serve their profit oriented purposes, the American worker, and their families will be forced into serfdom. It is coming.

Unless Congress changes the definition of what it means to be a corporation to exclude the ability to engage in campaign contributions, this nation will become the type of nation that we saw Italy become under Mussolini’s rule, whereby corporations and government had a super strong symbiotic relationship. Any change is unlikely, since the process of buying elections, along with secret groups hiding behind PACs selling their be-afraid agenda, cannot be the force of change needed for America to move forward with success.

President Obama will be giving his first State Of The Union address Wednesday. If he doesn’t speak about real changes that will put heavy duty chains around the necks of our financial industry, and dynamic ways to bring jobs to the unemployed, while protecting the economic fires burning all around working Americans from hamlet, to town, to village, to city, as well as illustrating a sustainable vision for the future of the country, his presidency is over.

Thanks for reading, jerry

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

It Was A Banner Year For Goldman Sachs-The Nation’s Leading Predator

As the economic armada is sinking with billowing smoke in the Sea of Financial Crisis, the U.S.S. Goldman Sachs raises a banner across its deck, announcing “Mission Accomplished”, Lord Lloyd Blankfein proclaims, “There’s no crisis that can’t be won!” During the state dinner aboard ship, during Lord Blankfein gives the opening address. He begins with a humbling first sentence stunning all of the oligarchs enjoying their elegant luncheon. He says, “A scam is a terrible thing to waste!” The crowd roars in applause, and a toast is made to Charles Ponzi, the first known grand Ponzi conartists of 1919.

That is correct. There is no crisis that cannot be scammed. While the neo-cons in the Grotesquely Oligarchist Psychopathetic Repugnicon Party are all saying that mortgage holders, in spite of being underwater with their mortgages, should not walk away from them. They must adhere to their obligations. WTF! are they talking about? As far as I can tell, Lord Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, AIG, and the rest of the financial crime syndicate thieves were about to sink in the Sea of Financial Crisis if they weren’t given TARP, TALF, PPIP, Fed Fund Drive-Through Windows (‘Can I have a Happy Meal with that, please?), and more totaling $23 trillion supplied by the taxpayers; yet, the homeowners, who were ripped off of $12T in household wealth, and found their mortgages underwater because of the financial crime syndicate thieves violated their ‘honor’ as American businessmen and sold junk mortgage derivative bonds to suckers who thought these low-grade securities were AAA, when really they were worth nothing; and then, knowing that these tranched bad mortgages mixed in with a few token good mortgages would likely go up in smoke, bought AIG’s credit default swaps to secure their foreshadowed losses. Nostradamus not required. In addition, they all knew they were Too Big To Fail and the government would step in with financial winches to hoist them all back up again.

But the small fry homeowners left out to dry with underwater mortgages are supposed to stand tall and keep on paying. What garbage.

Now, President Peacock Obama, who spent a year displaying his fancy feathers for the world to see as he strutted, while globetrotting, smiling for the cameras, while giving articulate speeches, has now decided to show he is more than just pretty feathers. He has told the voters that it was his “commitment [is] to recover every single dime the American people are owed.” Funny, funny Mr. President!! Where are the teeth behind this meek appeal? How will you actually do this? And, will you cower away when the banking predators come for your throat?

Your plan appears to be one that will place a tax levy on the biggest financial institutions in order to recoup losses from the TARP bailout program, which would amount to $90B over ten years. Now, being the math wizard that I am, that comes to just $9B per year. Goldman Sachs’ 2009 profit came to a whopping $50B, with $20B passed out in bonuses. Happy New Year big shots. Now, I would say President Obama has convinced himself that he believes he is sure talking tough. Unfortunately, he is only doing his new kabuki theater routine. It is just for show. He wants to try and look like he is all about the little guy. While stumping in Massachusetts for the Democrat who eventually lost to a neo-con Republican opposed to health care reform as viewed through the Democratic keyhole, he kept talking about the little guy and gal. Those hurting. Those suffering. Those who have lost so much while the bankstas took it all home with them. What a kabuki dance if I ever saw one. Wave the magic wand, Mr. President, and chocolates will come raining down on everyone, as George W. Bush believed when he entered Iraq for the first time.

Let us review the scam artistry that Goldman Sachs and the others engaged in. Brooksley Born, a member of the Financial Crisis Commission hearing panel, and the former head of the Commodity Futures Trade Commission, under Clinton, who, in 1998, publicly warned Alan Greenspan and Jamie Dimon, chairman of JPMorgan Chase, that there was a derivatives tsunami gathering a huge amount of destructive energy as it approached our own shores. They laughed at her, told her to go away and take some cookies on her way out. During these current hearings she reminded the four leading banksta syndicate operators testifying before her (GS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and BoA that they were chairmen of firms that they were responsible for about $230 TRILLION worth of trade in over-the-counter derivatives, much of which were still unmonitored!!! Holy heck! And the cons are worried about underwater mortgages and the working stiff getting health care at a reasonable price without cancellation?

Over time, the Federal Reserve worked its monetary magic by over-leveraging taxpayer wealth, via the treasury by increasing US debt by 4000%-from less than $3B to over $12T, with much of it going onto the balance sheets and into the pockets of the US corporate oligarchs, the financial banking thieves, and private equity funds, as well as the incredibly predatory industrial war machine.

After the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Federal Reserve and the laissez-faire, “free-market” (HA,HA) capitalists worked their black magic, their Voodoo Economics, by pressing legislators to erode the rules and regulations that were put into place following the economic collapse of the 1930s. As the government oversight was erased, the economic and financial predators began sucking from Lady Liberty’s breast to drain as much taxpayer wealth as was possible, revving up into a full force gale beginning in 2000. It appears that after one year of President Obama’s leadership, none of the erased rules and regulations had been restored, along with what we should have learned from past lessons.

We now have begun to see behind the Shadow Banking curtain thanks to the hosts on MSNBC, and others, such as Matt Taibbi’s work published in the Rolling Stone magazine, exactly how Goldman Sachs engaged in fraud against their clients, the American people, and AIG. Also, we are seeing a conspiracy to cover-up the fraud committed by the likes of Hank-the Paulie-Paulson, Monster Man of the Year—Bennie the Beard Bernanke, Lordie Lordie Blankfein, and Timmie-daG-Geithner, all of whom should be indicted using RICO. Where is the Justice Department? Where is the call for a Grand Jury investigation?

Back in 2008, when Timmie the G was President of the New York Fed and his chairman was Steve Friedman, who also had been a Goldman Sachs chairman, too, began mopping up AIG’s garbage mortgage bonds that they were insuring for Goldman Sachs to the tune of $14B at 100 cents on the dollar, since GS rejected a 40 cents on the dollar offer. Now tell me if this was not a conspiracy to protect the balance sheet of the top financial crime syndicate boss—Lord Blankfein!

Not only did GS get full value for their derivative contracts insured by AIG, but Merrill Lynch, and Wachovia did as well. They all got reimbursed by the taxpayer to the tune of $27.1B. Socialize the losses and privatize the gains!

It appears that under Bush, Hank Paulson and the others plotted to kill Goldman Sachs’ competition and leave only GS on the top of the investment banksta dog pile, since Goldman had its field marshal generals embedded in the government protecting their interests.

Lehman Brothers was brought down in 2007, and Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley were decapitated. While this planned demolition was going on, and long before, Goldman Sachs was selling garbage mortgage backed securities to suckers believing in the financial market’s Golden Egg, when actually it was rotten inside, while the wizards inside GS were selling off their garbage to AIG and buying swap insurance to guarantee their losses. They all knew, since Hank Paulson, a veteran GS chairman, then acting as Bush’s Treasury secretary, and Robert Rubin close to his side, as well as Bernanke, and Geithner, would rescue any of their losses when, and not if, it got there. There was no such thing as risk management. What it meant was take all the risk you want, Uncle Sam is there to help! Didn’t Reagan hate that phrase? Bush didn’t listen!

In 2006 and on into 2007, GS sold somewhere around $39B of their mortgage junk, and used their ‘honorable’ status as that of “upstanding” investment bankers and sold around $17B more mortgage junk securities for their clients, yet those good, law biding American business bankers never told the suckers who ended up buying those garbage bonds that they were making bets on the side just in case those mortgage bonds went south because the never-ending boom in housing price values might actually come tumbling down.

In late 2006, McClatchy News reported that Goldman Sachs spokesman, Michael DuVally said that the firm decided, at that time, to reduce its mortgage risks by selling off subprime mortgage-related securities as well as to purchase credit-default swaps which were used to hedge against a serious downturn in the US housing market. This all came about because in December 2006, after “10 straight days of losses” in Goldman’s mortgage business, Chief Financial Officer David Viniar called a meeting of key Goldman personnel.  (1.Economiccollapseblog.com, How Goldman Sachs Made Tens of Billions From The Economic Collapse of America In Four Easy Steps)

It seemed that Goldman Sachs was not going to let their Wall Street casino gambles become losses no matter what they had to do. This is how a crime syndicate operates. And, they are it!

“The New York Times recently wrote: A handful of investors and Wall Street traders, however, anticipated the crisis. In 2006, Wall Street had introduced a new index, called the ABX, which became a way to invest in the direction of mortgage securities. The index allowed traders to bet on or against pools of mortgages with different risk characteristics just as stock indexes enable traders to change the firm’s overall stance on the mortgage market, from positive to negative, though it did not disclose that publicly. Goldman used this new index [to their advantage].

Along with all of this, Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC, has been all over Timmie Geithner to reveal the secret deals and emails that went on between the NY Fed, when he was its president, and AIG, as well as everyone else involved in keeping their secret from their clients, and the SEC, the deal that brought Goldman Sachs, via AIG, a 100 cent reimbursement for their toxic mortgage backed securities that were insured (CDS) through AIG. Geithner has decided that the documents will remain secret until 2018. So much for President Obama’s transparency pledge to America.

These bets would only make money for Goldman Sachs if the U.S. housing market declined.” (See reference 1.)

It sure was a banner year for the King of FOP (Financial Obfuscating Predator), Mr. Lordie Lordie Lloyd Blankfein, but it was the nation that took the hit instead.

Thanks for reading, jerry

 http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

Here is the Colbert Report speaking about honor bound! It is great!

Articles and Videos of Interest

Over the last week, my internet friends and I have collected the following links of interest. I will try and do this on a regular basis for my readers to sift through.


Ratigan and Spitzer on the financial crisis hearings-video


California Bond Rating Downgraded


government control of money market funds


what is China doing to us?


what is the stimulus and some facts about it

Dean Baker on The Big Bank Theory

a book of interest

It is called:

Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market 

An American political prisoner held for calling a double-dipping judge!

Moodys warns of social unrest

US and our cities, such as California, may and will loose AAA ratings

Screw Job Coming

Union leader, Trumka, calls out government for lack of courage to fix jobs

the Federal Reserve's Ponzi scheme

those getting bailouts, and government/Fed assistance, as well as bonus recipients get easy tax rates!

proposed government take over 401Ks and IRAs

the lies behind the TSA and full body scanning capabilities

the disposable workers are those second on the list

video--Gerald Celente, Dire forecast for 2010

AIG allowed to keep their counterparty payoffs secret until 2018 by SEC

America will suffer permanent job losses

America's biggest economic mistakes

thanks for reading, jerry


http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com




PS.


The US is paying the Taliban hundreds of millions of dollars, which is in turn used to perpetuate their insurgency to fight our soldiers!!! When is enough enough? 

Newt Gingrich: Frog-Lizard Man and the Stone Age Party Agenda

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President Obama’s Crackdown on Airport Security

It is being leaked by the TSA (Transportation Security Agency) that in the next several weeks a plan will be unveiled regarding passenger check-in procedures. They are projecting that this new plan will eliminate any confusion when identifying a potential jock strap, or thong-wearing bomb igniting terrorist. The agency feels these new changes will simplify check-in procedures, and the boarding process.

The new plan will be tested in only a few undisclosed airports around the country. It may actually be tried out in one or two foreign national airports, as well.

What air travelers will receive when they check their bags and receive their boarding passes will be a special tote. One similar to what one might get when they contribute to their local public television or radio station. Then they will proceed to a changing area near the check-in location. Once they enter the changing area, they will go into what looks like a department store changing room. It will have a mirror, a bench to sit on, some hooks and a suspended rack to attach the tote handles, so we can easily place our clothing items inside it with as little effort as possible. Oh, how I love how fun air travel can be!!

All passengers will be required to remove all their clothing and put on what looks like a hospital gown. They will be allowed to keep their undergarments on, as well as socks. Over their feet they will be told to put on scrubs-like booties over their socks. Then they will place their tote filled with their clothing items onto an x-ray conveyor belt for examination.

Next, all passengers will walk through the metal detector most often without a hitch, unless they personally contain metal body parts and joints. That will be easy to detect, anyway.

All passengers will then carry their tote bags, with their names and flight data attached to the bags not unlike a hospital wrist ID. How fun!!! Everyone will look the same!!! Every traveler, no matter how rich or poor, will all look the same except for fashion eye wear, and hair styles. It will be like wearing a uniform to school. How cool.

Once you get to the boarding area, all totes will be placed into a hamper, which will be loaded onto the plane. How much safer can it get? Fly the friendly skies with Obama! Now that is a great slogan.

President Obama, in just a matter of days has taken a failed Bush administration process, and made it successful!!! President Obama did not waste a second removing the Jihadi terror threat from our soil. Now, if only he had taken such swift and dynamic action to remove the financial and economic terror threat presented to us by those inside Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and the rest, then the country would be in a much better way.

Unfortunately, our president does not see a financial and economic terror threat inside the United States, but on the contrary, appears to have felt that the mega-bankers have been victimized by hapless Americans who stupidly and foolishly fell for what was really supposed to a joke. You know, something like an April Fool’s joke where an unemployed person walks into a big bank, such as National City Bank of Pittsburgh, now defunct, and asks for a $200,000 loan to buy his Uncle John’s suburban home because Uncle John wants to buy a condo in South Miami beach, since he has been widowed for around 10 years and understands that there are lots of silver-haired single ladies waiting for Uncle John types to move in next door.

What he could look forward to is being asked to homemade dinners, such as lasagna, or pirogues, or tofu stews. He is not a very picky eater. Such a life actually sounds great to Uncle John, so he offers his nephew, the unemployed auto salesman, a chance to buy his nice Ryan home.

So, when the nephew walks into National City and is told to just sign on the dotted line and he can get a mortgage loan for 30 years with a ballooning interest rate, he says to the banker how much he loves balloons and will happily sign. Unfortunately, the nephew did not realize that the balloons he was told about are not the same ones that were used to decorate the auto show room. It was a joke, dude. Just a joke.

Oh well. President Obama thought it was funny when he was just a freshman senator from Illinois. Well, he was told to laugh by the Democratic leadership. They said, “Barack, just laugh when we say so.” And he did. But now, he is not laughing because the mega-bankers like Mr. Lordie Lordie Blankfein ended up with lots of bad mortgage loans that really weren’t supposed to be on his balance sheets. He and his banker pals wanted to make the joke last a real long time so they decided to wrap all the good, the bad and the ugly mortgage loans into what might look like a Taco Bell burrito filled with beef, cheese, beans, lettuce, and maybe poison green onions. HA, HA!

They these funny bankers sold off all the slices of these burritos, since they told other rich guys around the world how good they tasted. It was a joke, man. Don’t be so stupid as to eat those slices, or tranches as they were called in the business. The bankers thought their joke was so funny, they decided to bet that their customers would get sick and die.

But what happened was that these bankers, themselves got toxic poisoning, and were vomiting and pooping for many, many months. They got so sick that they called Little Boy Bush, Hankie the Pankie Paulson, and Bennie the Beard Bernanke to ask for a Public Option to be issued by Congress to the tune of $700 billion so they could get some sort of universal health care, no I mean universal financial care paid for by the public, who ended up with the joke crashing down on them to the tune of $12 trillion.

Boy, how could our hapless and dump fellow citizens fall for such a joke? But, President Obama was more concerned with the excessive vomiting and diarrhea of the bankers and did not want them to suffer very much, so he offered them an endless amount of Obama Care.

So, what we have now are very rich and cared for bankers, fat and happy with the social programs they were given. Maybe in 2010 the rest of us can get some Obama Care, but I doubt it.

Thanks for reading, jerry

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com